Caring for your child's teeth
You can start brushing your baby's teeth as soon as they start to come through. Use a baby toothbrush with a tiny smear of fluoride toothpaste.
Don't worry if you don't manage to brush much at first. The important thing is to get your baby used to brushing their teeth as part of their daily routine. You can help by setting a good example and letting them see you brushing your own teeth.
Brushing tips for children
- Use a tiny smear of toothpaste for babies and toddlers up to age three, and a pea-sized amount for children aged three to six years.
- Gradually start brushing your child's teeth more thoroughly, covering all the surfaces of the teeth. Do it at least twice a day: just before bed and at another time that fits in with your routine.
- Not all children like having their teeth brushed, so you may have to keep trying. Make it into a game, or brush your own teeth at the same time and then help your child finish their own. Perseverance is the key!
- The easiest way to brush a baby's teeth is to sit them on your knee with their head resting against your chest. With an older child, stand behind them and tilt their head upwards.
- Brush the teeth in small circles covering all the surfaces and let your child spit the toothpaste out afterwards. Rinsing with water has been found to reduce the benefit of fluoride.
- Supervise brushing to make sure your child gets the right amount of toothpaste and they are not eating or licking toothpaste from the tube.
- Carry on helping your child brush their teeth until you're sure they can do it well enough themselves. This will normally be until they're at least seven.
Taking your child to the dentist
NHS dental treatment for children is free. Take your child with you when you go for your own dental appointments so they get used to the idea.
To find a dentist, you can use our services search, ask at your local clinic, or contact NHS England on 0300 311 22 3 or email england.contactus@nhs.net.
Prevent tooth decay by cutting down on sugar
Sugar causes tooth decay. Children who eat sweets every day have nearly twice as much decay as children who eat sweets less often.
This is caused not only by the amount of sugar in sweet food and drinks, but by how often the teeth are in contact with the sugar.
Lollipops and sweet drinks in a bottle or feeder cup are particularly damaging because they bathe the teeth in sugar for long periods of time. Acidic drinks such as fruit juice and squash can harm teeth, too.
The sugars found naturally in whole fruit and milk are less likely to cause tooth decay, so we don't need to cut down on these types of sugars.
The following measures will help you reduce the amount of sugar in your child's diet and prevent tooth decay.
- Avoid sugar-sweetened drinks – the best drinks for children are their usual milk and water.
- It's OK to use bottles for expressed breast milk, formula milk, or cooled boiled water. But using them for juices or sugary drinks can increase tooth decay.
- From six months old you can offer drinks in a non-valved free-flowing cup.
- When your baby starts eating solid foods, encourage them to eat savoury food and drinks with no sugar. Check if there's sugar in pre-prepared baby foods (including the savoury ones), rusks and baby drinks, especially fizzy drinks, squash and syrups. See more about understanding food labels.
- If you choose to give your child sweet foods or fruit juice, only give them at mealtimes. Remember to dilute one part juice to 10 parts water. Your child should only have one drink of fruit juice (150ml) in any one day as part of their 5 A DAY.
- Don't give your child biscuits or sweets – ask family and friends to do the same. Use items such as stickers, badges, hair slides, crayons, small books, notebooks, colouring books and bubbles. They may be more expensive than sweets, but they last longer.
- Restrict how many sugary foods and drinks you give your child and how often they have them. If children are having sweets or chocolate, it's less harmful for their teeth if they eat the sweets all at once and at the end of a meal, rather than eating them little by little or between meals.
- At bedtime or during the night, only give your child breast milk, formula or cooled boiled water.
- If your child needs medicine, ask your pharmacist or GP if there's a sugar-free option.
- Check your whole family's sugar intake – see how to cut down on sugar in your diet.
Sucrose, glucose, dextrose, maltose, fructose and hydrolysed starch are all sugars. Invert sugar or syrup, honey, raw sugar, brown sugar, cane sugar, muscovado and concentrated fruit juices are also sugars.
Further information
